Yale to remove other stained-glass windows

A Yale University cafeteria worker was arrested and lost his job after smashing a stained-glass windowpane in Calhoun College that depicted slaves picking cotton.

Menafee, 38, told the New Haven Independent that he was sick of seeing the “racist and very degrading” image in Yale’s Calhoun residential college dining hall where he worked every day, so he made a decision to push the panel out of its frame.

Until he was sacked by the University, he was assigned to Calhoun College-a college named after one of the most ardent champions of slavery and states rights during his time-a man who saw slavery as a “positive good” instead of a necessary evil, as others of his time described it. Despite repeated and vigorous efforts by students, faculty and alumni to rename the college, the Yale University President decided recently that the name Calhoun College would remain.

As for Calhoun College itself, the long-running controversy over its name came to the fore just this year when Yale officials, after much hand-wringing, announced that they would not strip the former vice president’s name from the college.

Yale University issued a statement that said it would not press charges or seek restitution for the damage to the small pane, which was embedded in a window in the dining hall. Journalist Katy Waldman, an alum of Yale, stated that the window was a source of embarrassment for the community and that most of the community likely appreciates that Menafee removed it. Many Twitter users have been supportive as well.

Some have even used social media to set up a rally outside of the courthouse where Menafee will have his hearing.

“You look up and there is an image of slaves”, he said.

“I just went to the bathroom and shaved to make sure I was clean-shaven for the authorities”, said Manefee, who appeared in court Tuesday. “I put myself in a position to do it, and did it”.

Bianca Brooks, a student at Columbia University, began the crowdfunding campaign with Yale student Akintunde Ahmad, who personally knows Menafee. They said that glass from the window that Menafee broke fell on a woman on the street below, “endangering her safety”.

In the past year, campus activists started a petition to change the name of the Calhoun College. The worker is African-American, and the window depicted slaves in a cotton field.

Still, Yale students opposed to Calhoun’s namesake were quick to express support for Menafee.

The Yale Daily News reports that the broken pane has been replaced with clear glass.